A master forger who made thousands of pounds by ripping off art by Winston Churchill, LS Lowry and even Rolf Harris is selling the fake paintings on eBay - despite being banned a year ago.

David Henty has made £15,000 so far this year by pretending to be an art collector in possession of work by 56 artists, including Jack Vettriano and Duncan Grant.

But in reality he painted the forgeries himself at his Brighton home, before advertising them on eBay for unsuspecting art lovers to buy.

David Henty, posing with a replica of a painting by Jack Vettriano that he painted in Brighton. The master forger has made thousands of pounds of eBay by selling fake paintings, despite the website banning him

Artists forged by Henty include wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was a keen amateur painter. A spokesman from his estate said the forgery does 'terrible damage' to Churchill's reputation

Can you guess which one is the fake? The real version of LS Lowry's The Postbox is on the left, while Henty's imitation is on the right. The fake was withdrawn from eBay when they were told it was a copy

The 57-year-old was banned from the online auction website for life last year when his fake paintings were discovered.

However, Henty revealed he got around the ban by opening a new website 'diamond-antiques2014' and changing the name listed at his home address to 'David Diamond', The Sunday Telegraph reports.

'eBay claimed to have banned me for life but it’s easy to get new sites,” Mr Henty told the newspaper.

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'You don’t even need to buy a new computer. All you have to do is change the IP address on the same computer.'

Henty was jailed in the 1980s for his role in a passport forgery scam, and turned to faking art work in the 1990s after he struggled to make a honest career as a artist in his own right.

Forged paintings that appear on websites like eBay has led to concerns in the art world that the fakes could harm the real artist's reputation, and make their work harder to sell because people are not sure if they are genuine.

Henty, posing last year for the camera when his scam was first revealed. He admitted now he is back selling on eBay despite being banned, revealing he simply changed the IP address on his computer

Henty pretended to be an art collector who owned work from 56 different artists, including LS Lowry (left) and entertainer Rolf Harris, who painted the Queen. He is now in prison after being convicted of sex offences

Of the paintings sold by Henty, he claimed one to be from wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a keen amateur painter.

George Wise, who is in charge of Churchill's literary estate, said the news his work had been forged was 'very distressing'.

'This does terrible damage to Churchill’s reputation as an artist', he said.

When MailOnline asked eBay whether they had removed Henty's latest account a spokesman said they do not comment on individual profiles.

In a statement they added: 'We have previously removed several eBay accounts linked to Mr Henty as these accounts were in breach of our policies.

'Counterfeits are not tolerated on eBay, and we make significant investments annually to ensure we’re the most trusted way to shop. Both eBay and PayPal work closely with the law enforcement authorities.

'If a buyer is worried that an item may not be genuine, we ask them to look up the item number and the seller's user ID from their purchase history and report it to the police.

'Once reported to the police, eBay and the police work in partnership to investigate the item and the seller.'